I've been thinking a lot lately about strength. True strength and perceived strength, mental and physical, the whole shebang. Very soon now, I will be shouldering a ~30-pound backpack. Carrying my house on my back. I would be lying if I did not admit that I have extremely trepadacious feelings about carrying my 30-pound house on my back for three months. I have serious doubts about my body's ability to do this on a daily basis. I think it's going to get very heavy, and very old, very soon.
Then there is the other, more important, aspect of strength that is going to come into play on this trip. The strength to say "okay, it's not perfect." "Okay, things didn't go my way today but I am still going to have a good day tomorrow." "Okay, it doesn't matter if that shopkeeper was rude to me, if I got confused, if I got lost, if I made an ass of myself." That whole mental fortitude thing, which honestly has never been my -- well, strength.
When I think of this trip, I am afraid of everything from bedbugs to not being able to sleep because of dorm-mates' snoring, to being mugged and/or getting my passport stolen. And a hundred other things. I'm afraid this trip was an irresponsible foolish venture. I'm afraid I will squander my money unwisely. I'm afraid that these three months will fly by in a dream and before I know it I'll just be right the heck back where I started.
I believe I present myself, to my family and friends, as an exceptionally "strong" person. I have been told such. A friend called me an armadillo once. This is an image I have cultivated -- sometimes intentionally, often not -- for most of my adult life. In fact, my deep dark dirty secret is that this cultivated image is almost never how I actually feel. I just fake it. Really, really well.
Recently, a series of events has served to teach me exactly how far I have to go before I actually learn to practice all that I preach. The lesson has come at the cost of a small emotional ding, mostly taken out of my pride because really, seriously, I should have freaking known better. It's no big deal, in the grand or even the tiny scheme of things. In less than a week I will be in Paris with the person I love best, and really, what irritates me most is that this emotional mosquito is distracting me from things actually worthy of my attention. I guess its a good thing mosquitoes are easy to swat, and their stings never last very long.
Strength. For a long time I thought that having strength meant I was the baddest, toughest broad in the bar. The one who took no shit from anyone. It meant knowing how to throw a punch or deliver a perfectly timed zinging verbal jab. It meant protecting yourself at all times -- especially those most vulnerable organs -- the heart, and the mind.
But I'm not in my 20s anymore, and keeping all that shit up is frankly exhausting. And I learned a long time ago that the same antics that earned you fame and aplomb when you are 25 will not have the same affect eight years later. Maybe strength is not raging against the dying of the light after all. Perhaps it really is just plain more graceful to go gently. Maybe it's really not entirely necessary to settle every score, to always be the last man (woman?) standing, even at cost to yourself.
All this, of course, is not some sort of life-changing manifesto. If there is one thing my year in Georgia taught me, it is that people, at their core, do not change. Or maybe it's just that I don't. I have utterly no doubt in my mind that a time will come where once again I will lash out meanly, will make damn sure that a) there is a fight, and b) I win.
I can just hope that this fight will be against my backpack or a train schedule, because that might actually prove to be slightly productive.
But whatever. Right now I have to go and use some power tools to create something beautiful.
PS: I have been having an utterly bomb time this summer, make no mistake. Summer retrospective forthcoming.
Then there is the other, more important, aspect of strength that is going to come into play on this trip. The strength to say "okay, it's not perfect." "Okay, things didn't go my way today but I am still going to have a good day tomorrow." "Okay, it doesn't matter if that shopkeeper was rude to me, if I got confused, if I got lost, if I made an ass of myself." That whole mental fortitude thing, which honestly has never been my -- well, strength.
When I think of this trip, I am afraid of everything from bedbugs to not being able to sleep because of dorm-mates' snoring, to being mugged and/or getting my passport stolen. And a hundred other things. I'm afraid this trip was an irresponsible foolish venture. I'm afraid I will squander my money unwisely. I'm afraid that these three months will fly by in a dream and before I know it I'll just be right the heck back where I started.
I believe I present myself, to my family and friends, as an exceptionally "strong" person. I have been told such. A friend called me an armadillo once. This is an image I have cultivated -- sometimes intentionally, often not -- for most of my adult life. In fact, my deep dark dirty secret is that this cultivated image is almost never how I actually feel. I just fake it. Really, really well.
Recently, a series of events has served to teach me exactly how far I have to go before I actually learn to practice all that I preach. The lesson has come at the cost of a small emotional ding, mostly taken out of my pride because really, seriously, I should have freaking known better. It's no big deal, in the grand or even the tiny scheme of things. In less than a week I will be in Paris with the person I love best, and really, what irritates me most is that this emotional mosquito is distracting me from things actually worthy of my attention. I guess its a good thing mosquitoes are easy to swat, and their stings never last very long.
Strength. For a long time I thought that having strength meant I was the baddest, toughest broad in the bar. The one who took no shit from anyone. It meant knowing how to throw a punch or deliver a perfectly timed zinging verbal jab. It meant protecting yourself at all times -- especially those most vulnerable organs -- the heart, and the mind.
But I'm not in my 20s anymore, and keeping all that shit up is frankly exhausting. And I learned a long time ago that the same antics that earned you fame and aplomb when you are 25 will not have the same affect eight years later. Maybe strength is not raging against the dying of the light after all. Perhaps it really is just plain more graceful to go gently. Maybe it's really not entirely necessary to settle every score, to always be the last man (woman?) standing, even at cost to yourself.
All this, of course, is not some sort of life-changing manifesto. If there is one thing my year in Georgia taught me, it is that people, at their core, do not change. Or maybe it's just that I don't. I have utterly no doubt in my mind that a time will come where once again I will lash out meanly, will make damn sure that a) there is a fight, and b) I win.
I can just hope that this fight will be against my backpack or a train schedule, because that might actually prove to be slightly productive.
But whatever. Right now I have to go and use some power tools to create something beautiful.
PS: I have been having an utterly bomb time this summer, make no mistake. Summer retrospective forthcoming.
I'm smiling as I'm reading this, half ironically as I'm working on turning myself into someone that the Mary of 25 would understand quite well, I try to be the willow and bend gracefully, but that's not my nature most days. Different motivations perhaps, but a lot of the same behaviors in the end, I suspect, we'll see where I am when I come out of all this.
ReplyDeleteAnd what you are doing is amazing, and I'm looking eagerly forward to reading about your adventures, miscues, and amazing sights you see. It is nothing I want to do, as the idea fills me with a sort of shudder, thus making the ease at which you are doing it all the more amazing.
"I can just hope that this fight will be against my backpack or a train schedule, because that might actually prove to be slightly productive."
ReplyDeleteYou make me laugh :) I wish I'd seen more of you this summer!
As for the trip...even if you have trouble saying "It'll be okay tomorrow," you can always say, "Well at least this will make an interesting story," and then compose the snarky blog-post version of it in your head as you work through the fight. :)